you can be my last regret
by Madame Rhea Di'Ey
Summary: The one woman he ever dared love ended up marrying his brother, out of all people, so Sasuke drinks himself into an early grave at the bars of fancy parties. [Vignette. Unrequited SasuHina, on his part. Mentions of ItaHina. Your usual angst, basically. Also Karin having her glee of bitter victory, but that's another thing entirely.]


**title: **you can be my last regret**  
warnings: **foul language eeeey**  
notes: **basically – I'm dumb, my internet is dumb, and it's august 4 BUT I WILL POST TWO THINGS BECAUSE I CAN and to compensate for not posting anything yesterday  
**notes2: **I know it's SH month, not IH month, but _I have a lot of feelings and dejected, drunk Sasuke is my favorite thing. I DO WHAT I WANT._

* * *

"This is going to be the most awkward evening _ever_," Karin mutters softly under her breath.

Her hands work the knot in Suigetsu's tie expertly, and she tries to ignore his blatant staring down her dress – a backless thing that falls to her ankles and clings to her frame like a vice, all lavender silk with a sinuous slit up her right leg and a plunging neckline; he wonders how in the holy hell does the thing even stay on her.

_Women and their physics-defying habit__s_.

Soft artificial light rains down on them from the chandelier hung in the ceiling, framing her with a glowing aura that smooths the edges of her form to something diaphanous. She looks half-angelic and oddly unfamiliar, having replaced her glasses with contact lenses for the night.

They have gathered in Juugo's apartment to get ready for the event – largely because Karin's has too many potentially poisonous chemicals laying around (especially in the fridge) and Suigetsu's place has too many suspicious stains all over. Also because most of their clothes are neatly folded away in the ginger's drawers, for whatever reason; something that no one minds, because Juugo is excellent when it comes to housekeeping and picking out his cleaning products.

"Tell me 'bout it," he replies just as quietly. There's a rough quality to his voice that _does things to her_, and she actively ignores it. "A minimum of six hours spent at a fancy-schmancy party where all of the women present have, at one point, wanted to bang Sasuke? Fuckin' _fantastic_."

She snorts at the bitterness lingering in his words.

He will never get over Sasuke's ridiculous popularity with the ladies, just as she won't ever get over Sasuke's man-whoreness.

(or the fact that she was the only one he didn't whore with.)

Sometimes, Karin really envies Juugo; the guy can get over anything without a twitch, whether it is Suigetsu dry-humping his leg in a drunken stupor or a sudden rain of gunfire. "There's actually one woman in the entire world who didn't want to bang Sasuke," she says after a moment, unconsciously running her index finger down the length of his chest, from his throat to his belt under the apparent pretense of smoothing it.

He catches her hand and twines his fingers with hers, and for once, she doesn't pretend to hate him.

It would all be so much easier if they all just stopped pretending, since it's pretty damn pointless to begin with.

(if she stopped pretending she hates Suigetsu, if Suigetsu stopped pretending he doesn't find her attractive, if Naruto stopped pretending he isn't somewhat gay for his best friend, if Sakura stopped pretending she isn't still somewhat in love with Sasuke, if Sasuke stopped pretending he doesn't have it bad for his brother's wife; it would all be so, so much easier.)

"Hm?" he murmurs, and she's suddenly hyperaware of the lack of space between them. She wants to pull back, to escape the situation and smack him until she feels alright again, but he tightens his hold on her hand and the impulse is squashed. "And who'd be that magical unicorn of a girl, eh?"

Karin smiles thinly, and it's really more a smirk than anything else. There's a perverse joy in knowing the Man You Could Never Have has a Woman He Can't Touch of his own.

"Hinata Hyūga. Or rather, Hinata _Uchiha._"

* * *

Mother of everything, she's beautiful.

Not like that's unusual – she's always beautiful – but, still.

_Mother of everything._

Sasuke downs a full glass of whiskey, and the burn of the alcohol doesn't come anywhere near the one the sight of them sets alive in his lungs.

They are twirling on the floor in wide arcs, his brother and his brother's wife – the red skirt of her long dress opens up like a poppy under the sun, violent liquid fire pooling and twirling in the train around her superb legs. Itachi's hand is possessively pressed to her middle, palm flat and fingers curled around the small of her back. Hinata is smiling at him, doe eyes colored sunrise violet, laughing at something he whispers into her ear.

He feels the need to vomit. They are the definition of in-love and perfect and it makes him _sick_.

"You're going to develop cirrhosis if you keep that up," Karin says drily, a flicker of concern glittering dimly in the scarlet of her eyes.

He shrugs, and nods his head for the bartender to pour him another. "So?"

"You're going to disappoint everyone – and I know that it isn't something _new_ for you, but can you _at least _stop being so fucking pathetic? Really, Sasuke, it's been two fucking years. This has gotten _frustrating_ to watch," she says, and it comes out soft and venomous.

_Orochimaru taught you good, _he thinks then, because there's nothing of the girl with scrapped knees Naruto had introduced him to all these lifetimes ago.

"I know," he says, and swirls the amber around before taking a large mouthful of it. It's bitter and poignant on his tongue, and it tastes like woodsmoke when he lets it stumble down his throat, reminding him of late nights and days when he didn't have to give two shits about things like public image. "I _know_, Karin. But _I can't_, okay? I can't."

He looks like a child, and Karin is half-tempted to wrap her arms around him and take him home to bury under blankets until that gaping hole in his chest becomes numb and starts to close.

But that's impossible, because he is who he is and she's so past the stage where she'd give up the world for him if he asked her to.

So, she sighs, and curses everything in existence beneath her breath.

"Yeah, you can't," she agrees, watching him watch the bartender pour another refill into his glass. "There are people you can't get over, I know that better than anyone, _believe_ me –", she says, and the irony doesn't pass him by, "– but you _have to_, so you better fucking learn to play pretend. Because really, there's no one in this building save for Hinata herself that isn't aware of the major heart boner you've got going on for her. Even Lee can tell how bad you have it, for fuck's sake."

Sasuke just stares at her with something odd in his eyes. She can't read whatever's written in his look, so she drinks her martini in one smooth movement, and gets up from the stool.

"You know, Karin," he says, and it makes her stop dead in her tracks, the way he says her name, "I actually think I admire you."

"What for?"

"Because I'm that one person _you_ couldn't get over, but you play it off like it doesn't matter."

It's her turn to stare. _So that's how you want it to be, eh? _she thinks, and puts on her best daddy's-girl-alpha-bitch smile. The smirk that played on the edges of his mouth dies, and Karin feels strangely happy. "That's because it doesn't," she says, and it rings true. There's something dark in her heart that swells with joy at his suffering, and it makes her feel both dirty and pleased.

Karma's a bitch, and he finally got bitten in the ass, too. It's more than enough to make her happy.

She leaves him with a smile thrown carelessly over one shoulder, and goes to find Suigetsu, a laugh in-between her teeth and a vile sort of heat pooling in her veins.


End file.
